A conventional pluggable electro-optical module 1, e.g. a transceiver, is guided into a cage or a guide rails 2, which is mounted on the edge of a printed circuit board 3, through an opening 4 in a faceplate 5 enclosing a host device. An electrical connector 6 on the electro-optical module 1, extending from housing 7, is guided into position by the cage 2 with a mating electrical connector 8 positioned in the cage 2 and electrically connected to circuits on the printed circuit board 3. Accordingly, the front end of the optical module 1, which includes an optical connector 9, protrudes from the faceplate 5 beyond the wall of the host device making it susceptible to electro-static discharge, impact damage or misalignment from outside sources. Furthermore, externally mounted electro-optical modules limit the type of optical connector that must be used by the customer or they increase the amount of inventory required by the manufacturer to satisfy the different customers' requirements.
Pluggable electro-optical modules used in mobile testing equipment are subjected to much harsher environments, e.g. vans, various customer premises, etc, than typical telecom or datacom modules. Moreover, test equipment is used in different ways to perform different tests in a variety of locations. Accordingly, the optical test signal produced by the test equipment needs to be variable in wavelength, signal strength and data content, and test equipment needs to be adaptable to a variety of connector types. To solve this problem prior art test equipment has included relatively expensive electro-optical modules with added and/or non-standard capabilities. Alternatively, conventional test equipment uses a large number of externally mounted conventional pluggable devices necessitating large inventories of devices to provide the necessary functionality and customer connector requirements with high turn-over rates, due to excessive insertion and removal cycles.
Conventional internally-mounted electro-optical modules are typically soldered or otherwise fixed to the printed circuit board of the host device to provide an electrical connection thereto, while an optical connection is provided by a long pig-tail connection, thereby increasing cost and complexity of fiber routing and decreasing reliability.
An object of the present invention is to overcome the shortcomings of the prior art by providing a pluggable optical module mounted completely within the housing of a host device.